NIHR Non-Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship in Applied Genetics (Research Associate or Senior Research Associate*)

Research Associate: £28,695 - £37,394
Senior Research Associate*: £38,511 - £48,743

We are seeking to appoint a talented and ambitious Career Development Fellow (CDF) in Applied Genetics to lead and develop new projects in relation to donor health and genomics at the University of Cambridge. The CDF will be based in the new National Institute for Health Research Blood and Transplant Unit (NIHR BTRU) in Donor Health and Genomics (http://donorhealth-btru.nihr.ac.uk/). The goals of this new Unit are to combine cutting-edge tools from genomics, biology, and population health science to address key questions about donor health, the aetiology of important blood-donation disorders (such as the health consequences of iron deficiency), to improve the safety and precision of blood donation, and to build and use major genomic resources that enable the study of important chronic diseases of wider relevance.

A major remit of this position is to explore novel applications of genetic and genomic technologies to improve the safety and precision of blood donation. Exemplar applications include: (i) using genotyping approaches to predict red blood cell antigens more cheaply and efficiently than traditional serological approaches; (ii) imputing complex regions like HLA to screen individuals for rare haplotypes prior to transplantation; (iii) using principal component analysis to improve definition of ethnicity in the blood donor population. To achieve these goals, the successful candidate will have access to a 50,000-person bioresource (the INTERVAL study, www.intervalstudy.org) with genomic variation (genome-wide SNP genotyping and whole-genome sequencing) and detailed hematological, proteomic and metabolomic phenotypes already available in thousands of blood donors. These studies are expected to result in novel evidence and genomic tools supporting improvements in clinical practice in blood donation.

The CDF will be primarily based at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, one of Europe’s leading academic department of population health sciences. Furthermore, the post-holder will be integrated in a multidisciplinary team active across participating research groups, particularly the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and will gain direct experience of NHS Blood and Transplant, an innovative high-throughput component of the National Health Service. 
	
The Fellowship provides an exciting opportunity for a future leader in Applied Genetics/Genomics to launch their independent research career, and benefit from a world-class research environment with excellent mentoring and career development training opportunities. The post-holder will have: (1) a relevant background (eg, PhD in Human Genetics or similar or equivalent experience, and at least two years of post-doctoral experience, (2) a sound understanding of both genetic and statistical concepts (3) experience of working with large, complex datasets (4) a strong track record of authoring scientific publications (including first-author publications), ideally including high-impact journals, (5) experience of leading research projects, (6) experience of supervising junior staff or students. The post-holder should have excellent organisational and communication skills, ideally in the context of large international projects, and an aptitude for interdisciplinary understanding is highly desirable. Major emphasis will be placed on leading original analyses and manuscripts, career development and transition toward an independent research career; the ideal candidate will have scope to progress to fully independent team leader in the medium term.

The funds for these posts are available until 31st December 2018 in the first instance.

The post holder will work closely with Dr Adam Butterworth at the University of Cambridge’s Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit (Director: Prof John Danesh) and Prof Nicole Soranzo at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, as well as with other colleagues across the two institutions. 

Informal enquiries should be directed to Dr Adam Butterworth ([log in to unmask]) or Prof Nicole Soranzo ([log in to unmask]).

Location of post: Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, Strangeways Research Laboratory, Worts Causeway, Cambridge, CB1 8RN

Closing date:  10th January 2016

Interview Date: Week commencing 25th January 2016

*NB: The status of Senior Research Associate is awarded on the basis of individual merit and may be awarded to the successful candidate if approved by the Faculty Board of the Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.

To submit an application for this vacancy, please click on the link in the 'Apply online' section of the advert published on the University's Job Opportunities pages: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/8732/. This will route you to the University's Web Recruitment System, where you will need to register an account (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form. 

Please ensure that you upload a covering letter and CV in the Upload section of the online application. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

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